Meet Me in St. Louis

The Cincinnati Reds make their second trip of the season into St. Louis as they play the final 3 in their stretch of 20 games in 20 days. The Reds won just one of the previous three played in St. Louis and hope to leave town with much better results this time.

The division standings going into play today:

Central

W

L

PCT

GB

L10

STRK

exW-L

RS/G

RA/G

PIT

15

10

0.600

0.0

8-2

W2

14-11

3.9

3.5

STL

14

10

0.583

0.5

6-4

L2

15-9

4.8

3.8

CIN

14

12

0.538

1.5

5-5

W1

16-10

4.7

3.8

MIL

12

11

0.522

2.0

7-3

L1

11-12

4.2

4.4

CHC

9

15

0.375

5.5

4-6

L1

10-14

3.3

4.0

— The Pirates leapfrogged into first place yesterday by besting the Cardinals in the rubber match of a three game series. They will travel to Milwaukee today and then host the Nationals.

— The Cardinals swept the Nationals last week, but lost 2 out of 3 against the Pirates over the weekend. They’ll face Cincinnati and then Milwaukee.

— The Reds went from first to third on the basepaths and in the division standings with their series loss in Washington. They’ll complete their 10-game road trip in St. Louis and Chicago.

— Milwaukee finished a 3-3 West coast road trip last week against the Padres and Dodgers. They’ll host division rivals Pittsburgh and St. Louis this week.

— After losing 2 of 3 to Cincinnati, the Cubs took 3 out of 4 from the Marlins in Miami. They return to the Windy City to host the Padres and the Reds.

WHERE TO WATCH

All three games will be broadcast locally on FSO, or if you are in the St. Louis television market, Fox Sports Midwest. If you are outside either of these viewing areas, Tuesday’s game will be on MLB Network.

ROSTER CHANGES SINCE THEY LAST MET

The only change to the Cardinals roster was Matt Adams going on the 15-day DL last week. Infielder Jermaine Curtis was called up from AAA.

The Reds, of course, have lost Johnny Cueto and Ryan Hanigan to the disabled list, while Sean Marshall made his return this weekend.

PROBABLE BATTING LINEUP

Player

Bats

Pos

Age

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

BABIP

SB/CS

Matt Carpenter

(L)

2B

27

99

.273

.340

.466

124

.300

0/0

Carlos Beltran

(S)

RF

36

89

.289

.337

.530

139

.295

0/1

Matt Holliday

(R)

LF

33

94

.278

.394

.418

128

.308

0/0

Allen Craig

(R)

1B

28

94

.261

.298

.352

82

.329

0/0

Yadier Molina

(R)

C

30

94

.292

.330

.427

111

.308

1/0

David Freese

(R)

3B

30

51

.178

.275

.222

42

.235

1/0

Jon Jay

(L)

CF

28

93

.226

.278

.357

77

.262

1/1

Pete Kozma

(R)

SS

25

83

.270

.325

.365

94

.306

1/0

Since the Reds last visited St. Louis, Jon Jay has been moved out of the leadoff spot. Typically, either Carlos Beltran or Allen Craig has batted 2nd with the other player batting cleanup.

Each of the Reds starters appeared in the first Reds/Cardinals series. Latos and Bailey each allowed the most runs of any game he has pitched so far this year, though 3 of Latos’ four runs were unearned. Arroyo surrendered 4 runs in 6 innings.

The Reds missed Adam Wainwright earlier this month. He has had great control so far this season, walking just 1 batting in 37.1 innings. Jamie Garcia was hittable in his first start against the Reds, though he did strike out 10 batters in 6.2 innings. Lance Lynn had arguably his best start of the season against Cincinnati.

BULLPEN

Edward Mujica has replaced Mitchell Boggs in the closer’s role, and is 4-for-4 in four straight save opportunities. Mujica saved all three games in the Cardinals sweep of the Nationals a week ago.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Division rivals square off again. This series should be a close one, as the teams are even in runs scored and runs allowed per game. The pitching matchup for each game also looks fairly even.

With all the intradivision games in the NL Central this week, it’s going to be awfully hard for any team to pull away from the pack this week without sweeping their opponent. That’s actually something that could take the sour taste of the weekend series in Washington out of my mouth; a sweep of the Cardinals.

Great pitching matchups in game 1 & game 3 of the series. If Good Bronson takes the mound in game 2, all 3 games should be excellent pitching matchups. I’m really sorry to see Craig, Freese & Jay not producing as expected. What are the poor Birds to do? GO REDS!

@Hank Aarons Teammate:
How can you seriously dismiss a team like the Cardinals when the Reds haven’t won a playoff series in 17 years? The Cardinals have won 2 WS titles in the last 7 years and made the playoffs 9 out of the last 13 years. You may hate them but they have been much more successful than the Reds in 2000’s the last decade + and it’s not even close. Got to do something in the postseason to begin to change it. Sad but true.

Allen Craig and his .298 OBP has found his way into the 2-hole 3 times this season and the 4-hole 16 times. I’m betting the lineup Greg posted is the one we will see the most of this series. Freese’s injury and subsequent struggles have to be a concern for the Cards. John Jay is just struggling it appears. Smart move by Matheny to move him down in the order to see if he can get straightened out.

The Cards don’t run much. 4 SB and 2 CS from the projected lineup? Yikes.

I get to go to every game of this series. That is the only good thing about being stationed in WLB country. At least the Reds play nine games here this year and thanks to the fine folks at Busch Stadium, my active military status gets me in free to each one of them(except the Cards opening day of course). Add in the Opening Night in Cincinnati that I went to (Thank you Turtleman)and that’s ten Reds games I get to see live this year and only had to pay for one. I sure hope they brought the bats with them this time. The Cardinals fans, while it is all in good fun, love to rattle the cage when we are down. Go Reds.

I get to go to every game of this series.That is the only good thing about being stationed in WLB country.At least the Reds play nine games here this year and thanks to the fine folks at Busch Stadium, my active military status gets me in free to each one of them(except the Cards opening day of course). Add in the Opening Night in Cincinnati that I went to (Thank you Turtleman)and that’s ten Reds games I get to see live this year and only had to pay for one. I sure hope they brought the bats with them this time.The Cardinals fans, while it is all in good fun, love to rattle the cage when we are down.Go Reds.

I didn’t know they did that either. Good for them…and thank YOU for your service.

The Reds should simply destroy the Birds if the Bird’s lineup holds true. Matheny must be daft attempting such a ludicrous lineup with the SS hitting 8th & the C hitting in the middle of the lineup, not to mention consolidating his 6 best hitters together in the first 6 lineup positions.

@Shchi Cossack:
What’s wrong with their catcher hitting in the middle of their lineup? Do you know who their catcher is? Evidently you don’t if you think it’s odd to see him hitting in the middle of a lineup. He’s a stud!

@ajswartz888: Cossack was being sarcastic. It is very common practice around here to pick on Dusty Baker for his general practice of hitting the catcher 8th. There are some fans that think that maybe Mesoraco could be hitting higher and lots of folks wanted to see Hanigan hitting 2nd over the last couple years. We know who the Cards’ catcher is and he has turned himself into a very dangerous hitter to go along with stellar defense.

Still nothing announced from an official channel regarding any roster move. If Heisey goes on the 15 day DL, promoting Lutz makes sense due to the limited flexibility of the 40 man roster now, but an OF with 4 LH hitters and 1 SW hitter doesn’t bode well for in-game and PH substitutions. The only available RH PH would be Izturis and Miller, ugh!

Three scheduled off days in the next 2 weeks could really help get the roster back up to full speed. What an absolutely killer schedule this has been for the 1st month of the season. Here’s to ending with a flourish.

Looks like I will be missing the next two games. I just can’t do 8:15 start times, means the game ends around 11:30 or so. 11:45 or so if Broxton pitches an inning. Hah, well I be sure to come on the morning after to check out the recaps. Go Reds.

Today the Cardinals demoted lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski to AAA and promoted lefty Seth Maness. Hopefully Maness will get to make his MLB debut against Choo and/or Votto in a key situation.

On the other hand Sean Marshall returning to the Reds is huge – a huge boost to the Reds’ bullpen.

I’m excited about Chris Heisey being out of the picture. The bench is clearly very weak from the right side with Hanigan and Heisey out, but neither of them were hitting anything anyway. I’m not sure what they expect to do with Donald Lutz – I hope all he does is pinch hit while Xavier Paul and Derrick Robinson start games.

The bench now seems to be the opposite of last year, when they couldn’t find a lefty bat. Now they have Xavier Paul, Jack Hannahan, Donald Lutz, some switch hitters, and Corky Miller, but no formidable righthanded bat. Maybe Mike Leake is on pinch hitting duty. I really hope they can pull off a trade for a scrub righthanded platoon player. Maybe Casper Wells, maybe Chris Denorfia. Somebody who can platoon with Xavier Paul.

Has anyone seen an injury update recently? I haven’t heard much one Ceuto, Hannigan, or Ludwig. I know Ludwig is still gonna be out for some time but normally i feel like we’d have a better time table by now.